'Brain waste' thwarts immigrants' career dreams

AP – In this March 9, 2011 photo, Maria Montenegro, originally from Colombia, poses
for a picture in New York. …
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press – Sat Mar 26, 1:22 pm ET

NEW YORK – After finishing medical school in Bogota, Colombia, Maria Anjelica Montenegro did it all
— obstetrics, pediatrics, emergency medicine, even surgery. By her estimate, she worked with
thousands of patients.
None of that prepared her for the jobs she's had since she moved to the United States: Sales clerk.
Babysitter. Medical assistant.
That last one definitely rubbed raw at times.
"I know I was working in my field," the 34-year-old New York resident said. "But that is medical
assistant. I'm a doctor."
Montenegro is hardly unique, given the high U.S. unemployment rate these days. Her situation
reflects a trend that some researchers call "brain waste" — a term applied to immigrants who were
skilled professionals in their home countries, yet are stymied in their efforts to find work in the U.S.
that makes full use of their education or training.
Most of these immigrants wind up underemployed because of barriers like language, lack of access to
job networks, or credentialing requirements that are different from those in other countries. Some are
held back even further because they're also in the U.S. illegally.
An analysis by researchers at the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, estimated that
1.2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States were underemployed, out of a population
of 6.7 million. About another 350,000 were unemployed. The analysis, based on data from the
Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey, did not differentiate between legal and illegal
immigrants.
Brain waste has consequences for immigrants as well as American employers and the larger
economy, said Jeanne Batalova, policy analyst at the institute and co-author of a study on the issue.
For immigrants, it means bringing home less money than they have the potential to earn. For
employers, it means fewer skilled applicants in their hiring pools. For the country overall, it means a
missed opportunity to leverage already trained professionals in areas where there may be a
desperate need for them.
There's a "loss when human talent and potential is not maximized in the fullest," Batalova said.
Mohan Singh, 55, thought moving to the United States would be a smooth transition. Born and raised
in India, he left his home country for Kuwait, where he worked in air conditioning and elevator
maintenance. He lived in Kuwait for 25 years, started his own company and was successful enough to
send his daughter and son to college in the United States.
At their urging, Singh came to the U.S. in 2000. He said he thought "that I'll be getting the same job,
I'll be getting into a good field, make a good life."
It took seven years to complete the paperwork that allowed Singh to work here legally. When he
applied for jobs, would-be employers focused on the fact that Singh had not worked in his field in the
United States.
"They cancel all my experience," he said.
He now spends 12 hours a day, seven days a week, behind the wheel of a taxicab. It's a far cry from
the work he's done for much of his life, Singh said, and the wages are much lower than those he once
brought home. The whole experience has soured him on the idea of staying in America. He plans to
move back to India in a couple of years, when his son is done with his post-graduate work.
"I used to have money, I used to have good life," Singh said. "Over here, I'm hand to mouth."
Nikki Cicerani, executive director of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit organization that helps legal
immigrants find work in their chosen professions, said typically, immigrants come from environments
where job-seeking is done differently. They may not know how to navigate the system, whether it's
building a network to learn about job openings or having a resume formatted in a way that is familiar
to American employers.
Interviewing can be especially tricky. "In many other countries, the resume and the educational
experience is the clincher," Cicerani said, "whereas in the United States, the interview is make it or
break it."
American employers can also have difficulty figuring out if an immigrant would be the kind of
employee they are seeking, absent a ready way of understanding how foreign educational or
professional expertise translates in the U.S. job market, Cicerani said.
"They're not really clear how to evaluate a foreign degree against a U.S.-educated candidate," she
said.
Montenegro came to the United States in 2004 to care for her mother, who had been diagnosed with
breast cancer. She stayed after marrying a man she met here, and became an American citizen. She
now lives in the New York borough of Queens with her husband and two children.
Language was the first barrier that Montenegro encountered. She needed to improve her English, but
she also needed to work. She took a job as a sales clerk in a local mall, and even though it felt
strange to be a medical professional working in retail, she said, the position at least helped her polish
her language skills.
Then came larger hurdles that no amount of perfect English could surmount. There's a series of
exams, the first of which cost $1,000 alone, Montenegro said. She also has to complete a residency,
a requirement for all graduates of American medical schools. There are a limited number of residency
slots overall which makes it a very competitive process for everyone, but even more so for foreign
medical school graduates.
Montenegro has one more exam to pass before she can apply for a residency, a process that will take
at least a year or two. There's no guarantee that she'll be accepted for a residency; At times, she
fears she may never work as a doctor here.
"So many times I want to get my things and my passport and go back to my country," Montenegro
said. Over the years, she heard stories about the lifestyles her doctor friends in Colombia were able to
afford as she worked at various low-wage jobs.
While Montenegro agrees that her credentials and her ability to provide good health care should be
vetted before she's allowed to work in this country, she thinks having to train as a general practitioner
all over again when she already has experience is a waste — especially for the U.S., she said,
because she speaks fluent Spanish and could be an asset in any Spanish-speaking community in
need of a doctor.
"I'm ready to do that and help people," she said.
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